


Leaving

by dreamoverdrive



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 18:57:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4274352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamoverdrive/pseuds/dreamoverdrive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the early hours of the morning, Mai and Joey have their first real go at honesty since they were teenagers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaving

He nearly fell over when she came banging into his apartment. She was a storm of blonde hair, purple, and chaotic energy. A slender hand clinking with bracelets emerged to brandish something in his face—

“Take, take it right now, Joey!”

“What?” He could only blink at her. He’d been in the middle of trying to hang a picture frame on the wall. His friends had been teasing him for too long about the barren state of his apartment, so he’d gone to the dollar store to pick up a cheap frame for an old picture. The nail had just been set and he was about to hang the frame in all his self-righteous triumph when the door slammed open against the wall and she came in yelling her head off.

“Joey, focus,” she snapped. He raised his eyebrows at her and her lips pursed into a dangerous line. He noticed she wasn’t wearing any make-up. Mai hated leaving her house without make-up. She had told him before that it was an expectation she held for herself on principle. It really must have been something bad for her to come tearing out in the middle of the night with no—

“Joey, for one last time,” she gritted in a low voice.

“Alright, alright,” he said quickly, forcing the wheels in his brain to start turning rather than go around and around in basic logic circles. His eyes focused on the little blue book that she held before him. He reached for it slowly, figuring it was the best way to calm down but not quite certain he wanted to hold the object of her frustration.

“Mai, what’s going on?”

He knew that when Mai got like this she was looking for someone to give her a rise. She wanted someone to yell back at her, to prove that friends were uncaring and untrustworthy and that what she had been angry about was valid because the whole wide world was out to get her. Sometimes Joey gave her the rise, but only when she really needed it because the alternative was coming completely undone. He usually tried to prove her wrong. No matter how many insults she hurled, no matter how many times she stomped her feet and flashed her eyes, he wouldn’t raise his voice. He wasn’t sure if he would have been able to do it when he was younger, but now that he was older and saw the reasons behind what she did and why, he managed. Her reasons were painfully valid and every time ended with her curled up next to him on the couch, clutching at his sleeve and mumbling apologies as he held her and whispered, “It’s ok. I’m not leaving. It’s ok. I’m not going anywhere. I can hear you.”

“Just take it, Joey. Please.”

The shiver in her voice was enough to make him to grab the book at last. He looked back up at her. She was biting down on her lip hard enough to turn the skin around her teeth white. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought she was about to scream.

“Mai, come here.” He held his arms out to her. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was scared. Whenever Mai came to him angry, she remained in control. She may have said things she didn’t mean but she still had a semblance of a grasp on herself. This Mai was shaking before the argument had even begun with dark circles under her eyes that she hadn’t bothered to cover up.

“I can’t, Joey,” she choked. Red nails ran through her hair, gripping at her scalp as she shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Hey, hey,” he set the book down on a end table and reached out to grasp her arms. They were shaking. He pulled them to her sides, sliding his hands down her forearms till he could place his thumbs over the soft skin at the inside of her wrists. It usually calmed her down to have someone feeling her pulse. It made her feel real and tangible. Instead of the usual sigh of relief, he was met with a sharp sob.

“Don’t,” she said, pulling out of his grip. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Mai—“

“No,” she snapped, swiping at her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Don’t say anything. You haven’t even looked at what I handed you—“

“Mai, let me help you. I want to help you. I want—“

“No!” She shook her head and dragged hair back from her face to fix him with an attempt at a glare.“Don’t say that, don’t you dare say that! I mean it, Joey!“

He reached out for her, the familiar panic rising up in his throat. Even when he had been a kid, seeing her in danger or distress had started a strange throbbing panic in his chest. He was beginning to feel scared and the desire to fix it or have an objective was bouncing around his skull.

“Mai, please, I care about you.” He nearly choked on the cookie cutter words. I care about you. He did far more than care about Mai. He wasn’t quite sure what it had evolved to at this point after all these years, but her crying in front of him was calling up a red hot fear in his head and he wished she’d just let her hold him like he usually did so it would all blow over—

“Joey, just look at it.” Her eyes connected with his, the clearest they had been since she came in.

A lump of trepidation rose in his throat and he nodded. He picked the book up off his shoddy end table and folded it open. He was met with a small image of violet eyes that held a haughty gleam and blonde hair swept back from a smug, angular face. Below it in blue ink read Mai Valentine. There was more information: her birthday, her resident status—

“Mai,” he said, looking up in confusion, “This is your passport.”

“I know,” she snapped. She looked away from him and shakily folded her arms over her chest in an attempt at her old grandeur. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

“I don’t understand—“

“But don’t you?” She looked back up at him, eyes bright with something he couldn’t name. “You can’t figure out why I came rushing out here like a hellcat at one in the morning to throw my passport at you?”

His mouth went dry. “You were going to leave. Without saying goodbye.”

Her lips pressed together again, but this time in a wavering line. She nodded and took in a harsh breath, “I was through customs and I had checked in my baggage. I was sitting at my gate, God, Joey, they were calling the flight number—

He stepped forward and pulled her against him, arms in a loose grip she could break out of. She shook and her hands wound their way up to the collar of his shirt. “I was going to leave,” she whispered. “I wasn’t going to say goodbye. I was never going to tell you where I had gone. I was going to play in tournaments for the rest of my life in faraway places where you’d never, ever find me.”

“Why,” he asked, her hair tickling his chin. “Have I done something wrong—“

“No,” she cried, pulling back enough that she could look him in the eye. Her hand moved up to cup his jaw and he felt his pulse spike almost painfully. “No, of course you haven’t.” Her eyes flickered down to his lips and back up again. “I just…” She closed her eyes and Joey felt like he was filled with electricity—

She tore herself away from him, hands shooting back to her head to yank through her hair as she spun away. “God, I’m so pathetic. I’m so sorry, Joey, I never meant to do this to you and you don’t deserve it—“

“Mai,” he said, hating the desperation in his voice, “It’s ok. Just tell me why you were going to leave.” She was still facing away from him but he could tell she was wiping her face. In one moment, he swallowed his pride, the fear he’d been clinging to all these years that kept him from being honest with her— “Why,” he asked, trying to convey to her in one word how much he wanted to, no, needed to know why she was going to leave him with nothing but half-assed memories and regrets.

She stilled, hands dropping from her face. She turned to face him with an expression of honest vulnerability and said, “I’m scared.”

He could only stare. She hadn’t openly admitted to fear for the last three years.

Neither had he.

“What are you afraid of?”

Her face started to crumple. “Please don’t make me—“

“Mai, please.”

She stared at him for a moment, tear tracks lined down her cheeks and hair in a wild mess around her face. Joey was struck by the sudden knowledge that this was the first time they’d been truly and completely honest with each other since he was seventeen—

“I love you,” she said.

Everything slammed to a shuddering halt and a roaring started in his ears. He hadn’t expected anything, but if he had expected something, it never would have been that. His ribcage started to feel like it would shake apart from the frenzied pounding in his chest. After all this time, after all the, stupid, stupid excuses…

“Mai, I—“

“It’s ok,” she said, waving him away with a choked little laugh. She was scrubbing at her eyes again and refusing to look at him. “I’ve been so, so horrible to you over the years, Joey. I owe you so much and you don’t owe me a thing. Don’t feel obligated—“

In two large strides he was across the room and her face was cradled in his hands. He swept his thumbs over the rise of her cheeks and realized he was saying something over and over—

“I love you. I love you. I love you.”

She laughed, her hands moving to cover his. “I love you, too. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Why were you scared,” he asked as their foreheads came to rest together.

“This isn’t me, Joey,” she whispered. “I don’t have roots. These last few years in one place have been a weird, wonderful exception—“

“Why don’t you want to stay?”

“I do!” She paused, her hand moving to rest against the back of his neck. “I really do,” she breathed, “but I don’t know if I can do this. Tonight was just the first time. You can’t have me in here every month acting insane because I don’t know how to handle feelings.”

“You can come in here every day if it keeps you from leaving.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth her eyes flashed right before his and she leaned forward. The gentle pressure of her lips against his made his head spin and they moved with a slight urgency, her fingers tangling in his hair to pull him closer. He pressed against her tightly, wanting nothing more than for there to be no space between them and she smiled against his lips as if she knew what he was thinking. He followed her insistent lead, hands sliding away from her face and brushing down the warm skin of her neck to her shoulders. Finally, he had to pull away, if only because he felt like one more moment kissing her would drive him absolutely mad.

At first there was only the sound of their breathing, but then she began to laugh. He smiled, leaning back in to press his lips along the line of her jaw. He worked his way up slowly as she tilted her head to him, ending at her temple only to come back down to her chin and then up again to her lips where she met him for one more slower, sweeter kiss.

They pulled apart for the second time but their foreheads remained pressed together. She blinked up at him and he laughed. “There’s no need to try and trap me like that, Mai. You’ve done a good enough job already.”

She smiled for a moment and then a serious light came back to her eyes. “I’m still so scared.”

His fingers moved to stroke her cheek. “We’ll move slowly.”

“Will you keep my passport?”

“No, you don’t need me to force you to stay just to keep you here.”

“Joey… I think we’re going to be alright.”

There was a comfortable moment of silence as they stood pressed together without the excuse of an attack or an injury to keep them there. They’d spent so much time dancing around each other, blaming their tendency to drift together on mere circumstance. Joey smiled and took a deep breath.

They were safe.

They were together.

“I think so, too, Mai.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I accidentally binged on yugioh for a few weeks and I forgot how much I cared about this pairing?


End file.
